Self Awareness and the Effective Leader

Self Awareness and the Effective Leader

Self Awareness and the Effective Leader

Rice University

About this course: Part of being an effective leader is learning how to play to your strengths and overcome characteristics that don't lend to good leadership practices. During the course, you will examine your own strengths and learn ways to use them in a leadership role. Learn to manage stress and solve problems creatively. Throughout the course, you will also build a tool kit of useful techniques that you can begin using right away in your engineering career.
This course is designed for engineers who are interested in and have the desire to advance into leadership and management roles. You don't need any leadership experience to do well in this course. We ask you to reflect on your personal experiences pretty often,, so some work experience will help you in that aspect, but we hope that most of what you learn here will be applicable to many areas of your life.

Who is this class for: This course is geared toward practicing engineers who are early in their careers, especially those who are either in or approaching their first leadership role.

An introduction to self-assessment tools that allow you to identify strengths and weaknesses and how they could impact your leadership style. This week's tool for your leadership toolkit is developing your statement of life purpose.

11 videos, 5 readings, 2 practice quizzes

Video: Observation and Objectives

Reading: Recommended Readings

Video: Hierarchy of Life Management

Practice Quiz: Hierarchy of Life Skills Quiz

Reading: Personality Assessments

Video: Personality Assessments

Video: Core Self Evaluation

Video: Locus of Control

Video: Dispositional Influences

Video: Cognitive Styles

Practice Quiz: Self Assessments

Discussion Prompt: Managing Oneself

Video: Managing Oneself Discussion

Reading: Are You a Player or a Victim?

Reading: Know Your Life Purpose

Video: Tool box - Statement of Life Purpose

Video: Dave's Journal - Making Assumptions

Reading: Journaling Topic

Video: Summary

Graded: Module 3 Quiz

WEEK 4

Stress Management

Develop strategies for limiting or leveraging stress to improve your leadership style. The tool of the week teaches you to practice effective techniques for controlling stress.

8 videos, 3 readings, 2 practice quizzes

Video: Observation and Objectives

Reading: Recommended Reading

Video: Motivation to Lead

Practice Quiz: Quiz: Motivation to Lead

Video: Stress as a Forcefield

Video: Defense Mechanisms and Responses

Video: Strategies for Managing Stress

Practice Quiz: Stress Management

Video: Dave's Journal - Philmont Trek

Reading: How to Make Stress Your Friend

Discussion Prompt: How to Make Stress Your Friend

Reading: Journaling Topic

Video: Tool box - Using Stress Management

Video: Summary

Graded: Module 4 Quiz

Graded: Self Awareness Peer Review Assignment

WEEK 5

Creative Problem Solving

Discuss the differences between analytical and creative problem solving. Develop techniques for encouraging creativity in solving problems while recognizing and overcoming conceptual blocks. We add mind mapping to your toolbox this week for a way to foster personal creativity.

10 videos, 4 readings, 2 practice quizzes

Video: Observation and Objectives/Making Assumptions

Reading: Recommended Reading

Discussion Prompt: Filling in the Gaps

Video: Analytical and Creative Problem Solving

Practice Quiz: Analytical and Creative Problem Solving

Video: Constancy Block In Detail

Video: ... The Other Blocks

Video: Overcoming Barriers to Creativity

Practice Quiz: Conceptual Blocks

Video: Conceptual Blocks

Video: Assessing Your Creative Style

Reading: Embrace the Shake

Reading: Another Perspective

Video: Dave's Journal - Experimental Observation

Reading: Journaling Topic

Video: Tool box - Mind Mapping

Video: Summary

Graded: Module 5 Quiz

FAQs

How It Works

Coursework

Each course is like an interactive textbook, featuring pre-recorded videos, quizzes and projects.

Help from Your Peers

Connect with thousands of other learners and debate ideas, discuss course material,
and get help mastering concepts.

Certificates

Earn official recognition for your work, and share your success with friends,
colleagues, and employers.

Creators

Rice University

Rice University is consistently ranked among the top 20 universities in the U.S. and the top 100 in the world. Rice has highly respected schools of Architecture, Business, Continuing Studies, Engineering, Humanities, Music, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences and is home to the Baker Institute for Public Policy.

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Ratings and Reviews

Rated 4.6 out of 5 of 53 ratings

IS

Excellent course to sharpen leadership skills.

BS

Enjoying the voyage of self-discovery. I think this is a must-do course for engineers, looking to transition into leadership/management roles. I like the introspective aspect of the course, as one can improve through introspection.

KA

High quality material.

The course content shows the meticulous efforts by the creators. It perfectly fits into the stipulated time of course completion, thus providing the participant with enough time to skim and scan (if not read through) through the materials and helps them take along the essence of it. The quizzes can be enhanced into more conceptual ones, rather than being theoretical based on the videos and summaries. The peer graded assignment is helpful in the way that it tests your actual understanding of the learning materials. In sum, it is a course worth the time and effort.